Loren writes
> > >Initiates are discouraged from joining any large military unit, and
> > >must swear not to use any blade longer than their forearm. Thus, they
> > >may use knives and shortswords, but no broadswords or other swords of
> > >war.
> > Could you elaborate more on this rational. If it's to do with
> > inflicting pain rather than death this would rule out most weapons
> > altogether. After all you can kill a person with one knife blow. It
> > would be more of a question of how you used a weapon than the weapon
> > itself.
>
> That's a toughie, and it requires me to reach into the ***WELL OF
> INSPIRATION*** and pull out something that I just made up.
>
> Many people will tell you about the spirit of darkness who guarded
> Death, such a terrible guard that Eurmal and Humakt could waltz in
> and out without its noticing anything, and was much later warped into
> Vivamort. But what they don't tell you is that urVivamort was the
> guardian of Death only at night, and Ikadz was Death's guardian
> during the hours of daylight. Both urVivamort and Ikadz had to swear
> that they would never wield Death in the shape of a sword as a
> precondition to their guardianship. After it failed in its duty,
> urVivamort fled Hell. But Ikadz continued to guard Death from the
> living, and that is why he shrives the newly dead when they approach
> the land of death.
Hmmm, but even given the strange timelines pre-S.T. Death was in Hell before
Yelm was murdered (oops, sorry: should have said sundered :-) so there was
no 'day' down there. This agrees with the trolls Wonderhome when the first
time they saw light was when Yelm came down after being killed.
Unfortunately I don't have any other story to offer in response...
Robert